I Keep Being Asked

My therapist and my meds therapist seem to think I should be getting over my depression. They call it 'post-cancer depression'. I feel some confusion there. Am I supposed to be magically better because I haven't had a cancer recurrence? Seriously. I feel not confusion, but more of a disconnect.

I was first told that I had depression when I first went to a therapist (years) after my first cancer diagnosis. I managed to keep my depression in check after a good deal of therapy and more years of being healthy. Then with my second cancer diagnosis, how funny was it that my depression returned? It didn't help that then my health really tanked.... And my depression hasn't gone away.

Maybe if I was healthy again, my depression wouldn't be as much of a factor in my life. I noticed a few weeks ago when I intentionally spent a day at home by myself that I needed to then spent the next few days out doing something with other people.

Another assumption on the part of my therapists. I guess I now have a project to deal with - training my treatment team. A big part of being a patient is managing your treatment team.

This is the same as an employee needing to manage up - train their manager on what to expect from them as an employee. I learned this lesson early in my career. If you want to grow as an employee you need to make sure your manager understands where you are coming from.

I hope by now you can see where this is going. The same as being a patient. When you see your doctor or a medical professional you need to make sure they understand what is happening in your life. Have you undergone any recent testing, have you had any changes in your recent health, etc. Has your life changed at all? How are they supposed to treat you appropriately if they do not stay up to date with what is going on with you?

So now I need to train my therapists so they can follow what I am doing and understand what is going on in my life. And they can stop their assumptions about my depression.

Please Do Not Make Assumptions

Even if you have walked the walk, please do not make assumptions that what works for you will work for others.

I had one of those around and around and around arguments discussions yesterday with someone (not my husband) yesterday. He kept saying that what he does to make himself feel better will work for everyone else, especially for the person we were talking about. I chose to disagree and we ended up arguing discussing it way too long.

My point was that with rheumatoid you may be able to go do something for a bit and then you need to take a break and rest for a while before doing something else. And sometimes that rest period could be a few hours before you were up to anything else.

His point was that if you were sitting for a few hours, reading or whatever, you need to get up every hour and do some exercises. And you need to go for a walk or two every day and you should never just sit around.

I tried to explain that with lots of pain or different types of pain, rest may need to take priority and getting up and doing exercises every hour may not be a reality. I agree that sitting around all the time is not a good idea but sometimes when the pain is too bad, that may be all you can do.

He would not let go. He insisted he was right because it works for him and that he has pain too (but not rheumatoid) and he is just stubborn as hell. He assumed because he has pain too what works for him works for everyone else with pain. I ended up being very upset and made some excuse to get off the phone.

He assumed the wrong thing. That pain is pain and it is no different for one to another. But it is. I find this so aggravating. Please, if you have learned anything from your own medical issues, do not assume what worked for you will work for everyone else.

Things that annoy me

I am sure you all can think of things that annoy you. We all have our pet peeves. But since its my blog, I get to tell you mine. You can feel free to leave a comment about yours if you want too.

I always get annoyed by people making assumptions. You know they assume you are going to die because you have cancer. Cancer is not fun but its not necessarily going to kill you. You could get hit by a bus anytime. Think of it that way for a bit. But I really hate it when people make assumptions about others relating to health. You have no idea what I am going through so stop assuming anything about me. You can ask me about it but don't assume I want to tell you my entire medical history. I will tell you what I feel like discussing but I am not going to have an in depth discussion about my health.

Then there are the idiotic thoughts about my health by, well, idiots. Those are the people that either:

1. Ignore the fact I have health issues and can't do what I used to do. Do you want to go hiking? We are going peak bagging this weekend. You should come with us.
2. Assume I will be cured. (See assumptions above.) I am not going to be cured. The best hope is no further health issues or disease progression. Stop telling me that because I had a back procedure, I must be fine now.
3. Tell me how I feel. You must not hurt much today since you didn't work yesterday. Um, pain and fatigue don't give me breaks because I took a day off. That day off was to recover from the days before.  (I think I am stuck on assumptions here).

Finally there are the people who insist on telling me what treatments I need. Did you go to medical school? No? Then shut up. I don't really care what your cousin's neighbor's dog walker's mother's hair stylist's friend had for treatment for a completely different disease twenty years ago.

I also get annoyed by things like people who stop their car in the middle of the road for no reason,  people who use their cell phones in restaurants or movie theaters, and at the cat who won't eat enough because he's old and can't smell his food, but you get the point.

See, I'm not perfect. I am just a normal person stuck inside a body that has lots of health crap.

About that risk assessment

There is all this talk these days about what you can do to reduce your risk of cancer, dementia, chicken pox, or the common cold, among a million other things. You know all the advice - eat broccoli, exercise, don't drink, lose weight, exercise, eat margarine no eat butter, drink red wine no white - and all it does is confuse the crap out of us.

Then they start to give people personal risk assessment for an ailment and expect us to believe them. How much conflicting medical advice do you hear on a given day? A lot. Eat red meat and chocolate, no don't, yes, well a little, and the famous words - in moderation. How can you be expected to believe anything?

When you are told what your risk of some thing is - whether being diagnosed with cancer or being hit by lightening, don't you always harbor that little thought in the corner of  your brain that of course they are only talking about other people and not you or anyone you care about. Its always going to affect those other faceless people you don't know.

So why all the surprise when a new study shows that one in five women don't believe their breast cancer risk? I can honestly tell you I was very surprised by both my cancer diagnoses. I thought my back pain was the result of muscle strain and not the permanent debilitating state of the disks in my spine. I thought my aches and pains that turned out to be rheumatoid and fibromyalgia were just normal aging.

Sometimes I think, they were all wrong and I am really a healthy person who can live the way I used to - working full time, having a social life, and going off on adventures regularly that involve beaches, mountains, and the great outdoors.

Seriously, we hear so much conflicting medical advice and then if someone gives us a risk assessment, we are supposed to believe them? I think a risk assessment is like listening to the weather forecast - there is a good chance Saturday will be rainy and it should clear out for Sunday but watch out for a hurricane next week. How do they really know?

Want vs can

As I have been cutting back in my life, I have run into some misunderstandings. There are people who think that I am not doing as many things  in my life due to the fact that I don't want to. But the reality is that I cant do everything I used to do.

I used to go for a daily walk. Yesterday I went for a walk because it hit 60 degrees (finally) on  one of my favorite routes through the conservation land that I used to do easily. When I came home and had to lie down for a bit and was hobbling around for the rest of the day and almost bailed on cooking dinner.

I was at a meeting recently and someone said something about me not wanting to do everything I used to do for the group. They were wrong, I really can't. I think they look at me and think I look the same as I did six months ago but I am not.

Looks can be deceiving. Just because I do not look different, doesn't mean I don't feel differently. I am on more medications, in more pain, have less energy, and have much more difficulty in getting around. I am not a slacker but I just can't do everything I used to.

So before you look at me and tell me that I don't want to do something or I just need to suck it up and do everything I used to do, take a minute to think from my side and don't assume that I'm lazy.